March 27, 2006

War of Words Over Paper on Israel

When “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” first appeared on the Web site of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government this month, the paper’s title page featured the globe and Harvard seal that make up the Kennedy School’s logo, and that routinely appear on papers posted there. If you download the paper now, however, you won’t find the logo on the PDF. The Kennedy school — with the authors’ permission — took the logo off, a sign of just how sensitive this paper has become.

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Critics — led at Harvard by Alan Dershowitz and elsewhere by The New York Sun — are lobbing criticism after criticism at the paper, saying that it is bigoted, ignorant, stereotypical, uses material out of context, and borrows from hate-oriented Web sites. Defenders of the article, meanwhile, say that it is bringing attention to an important issue and that the reaction to the article demonstrates one of its key themes, which questions the logic of close ties between the United States and Israel and argues that a powerful pro-Israel lobby make its difficult to deviate from its views.

The article itself is certainly getting unusual attention for a scholarly work. (If you want to judge for yourself, but don’t have time for the full version, which is 82 pages counting footnotes, the authors have also published a shorter version in The London Review of Books.)

The authors of the controversial article are both well respected political scientists: Stephen M. Walt, who is academic dean and also holds an endowed chair in international relations at the Kennedy School, and John J. Mearsheimer, who holds a chair at the University of Chicago. Their article argues that the United States has hurt its own security by being too close to Israel, that Israel is not deserving of such support, and that pro-Israel lobbyists silence anyone who would question Israeli interests. The article uses “the Lobby” as a phrase to cover the activities of a number of groups that work to build support for Israel.

While not a major focus of the article, the piece touches on the state of campus debate about Israel and the Middle East. The article says that pro-Israel groups have increased their activities on campuses, and it specifically criticizes the David Project, which led criticism of Middle Eastern studies professors at Columbia University. Generally, the article says that while “the Lobby has gone to considerable lengths to insulate Israel from criticism on college campuses,” it has failed to do so because “academic freedom is a core value and because tenured professors are hard to threaten or silence.”

Since the article was published, it has been the subject of repeated articles and editorials in The New York Sun, a relatively small daily, but one with influence in neoconservative and media circles. Among the more embarrassing pieces there was one with the headline “David Duke Claims to Be Vindicated by a Harvard Dean,” which quoted the white supremacist as a fan of the new study, of which he said: “It is quite satisfying to see a body in the premier American university essentially come out and validate every major point I have been making.”

Joining the criticism on Friday was the Anti-Defamation League, which published an analysis of the article that called it an “amateurish and biased critique of Israel, American Jews and American policy.”

At Cambridge, meanwhile, Dershowitz, a professor at Harvard law, has been leading the charge. In an interview, Dershowitz said that the article took quotes out of context, was factually inaccurate in parts, and came down to “the conspiratorial argument that the Jews have too much power and control.”

Dershowitz said that the article was “bigoted” for implying that Jews are monolithic in support of all of Israel’s policies and of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq. In fact, Dershowitz said, while he is a strong supporter of Israel, he has numerous disagreements with Israel’s policies and opposed the war in Iraq. Asked for examples of facts that are wrong or lack context, Dershowitz cited the article’s reference to the “blood kinship” of Jews as the basis for citizenship in Israel. Dershowitz noted that Israel has Arab citizens who are Christian and Muslim. Further, he said that Israel has a much larger percentage of non-Jews as citizens than the United States has of non-Christians or that most countries have of minority religions.

Many donors to Harvard are furious about the article, Dershowitz said, and with good reason. “People are outraged and embarrassed by this trash,” he said.

Criticism has been multiplying online — some of it quite detailed in going through statements in the article and raising questions about its fairness.

As all of this has been going on, the scholars who wrote the piece have been largely quiet — giving a few early interviews in which they defended their work, but declining to get into a point-by-point discussion and also criticizing their critics for implying that their piece is anti-Semitic. (Most of the critics do stay a bit away from that explicit charge, and while “bigoted” is used frequently, “anti-Semitic” is generally not, at least by the professors discussing the article.)

Mearsheimer did not respond to messages seeking comment for this article.

In a phone interview, Walt said that the authors stood behind their work and looked forward to scholarly discussion of it, but he also declined to respond to specific criticisms being raised.

He said he wasn’t surprised by the strong reaction the article is receiving. “Anybody who writes on a controversial topic is bound to face criticism and may also face personal attacks of various kinds,” he said. “Our purposes in writing the piece was to open up a broader discussion of American policy in the Middle East. We hope people will read what we wrote and engage in a serious discussion of the arguments.”

Variations of that response have further angered some of the authors’ critics.

“So let me get this straight: the authors have written and published a paper because they want to provoke an open debate — and then decide not to respond to any of the critiques made of the paper,” wrote Daniel W. Drezner, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago.

While the paper was written by professors at two universities — Chicago and Harvard — the full article was published on a Harvard Web site and many of the critical articles about it that appeared early on called the work a “Harvard paper” or “Harvard study” or some variation, so much of the criticism has been directed toward Cambridge, not Hyde Park.

The Kennedy School issued a statement indicating that the institution “stands firmly behind the academic freedom of its faculty, including Professor Stephen Walt.”

The statement noted that papers published on the school’s Web site always include a disclaimer reflecting Harvard’s policy of not interfering with or dictating professors’ views. The routine statement says: “The views expressed in the KSG Faculty Working Paper Series are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the John F. Kennedy School of Government or Harvard University.”

The Kennedy School said that — with Walt’s approval — the school’s logo had been removed from the paper “in an effort to minimize the confusion” created by press accounts about the paper being a Harvard study. Also citing “apparent confusion in the media” about the paper, the authors added “clarifying language” to the cover page of the study. The clarification said that the authors were “solely responsible” for the views expressed and that the article should not be taken to reflect the views of either Harvard or Chicago.

Roger W. Bowen, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, said on Friday that in the previous 24 hours he had received e-mail or calls from a dozen people, around the world, concerned about the way the article’s authors were being treated, and that the AAUP was monitoring the situation.

Bowen said that the irony over the furor is that the argument in the paper is “not particularly new.” The reaction is largely because of the association of the argument with Harvard, he said.

Harvard’s policy of having professors indicate that their papers reflect their views, and not those of the institution, is not only appropriate, but helps academic freedom, Bowen said. “No institution can take responsibility for what one of its faculty members writes. If they were to take responsibility that also implies that they have the right to make changes,” he said.

What is of concern in this case, he said, is if Harvard is going beyond its normal policies to disassociate itself from these arguments more than it would from any argument put forward by a faculty member. At this time, he said, he doesn’t feel he has enough information to know if that’s the case.

Some critics of Walt have noted that because he holds an administrative position at the Kennedy School, he is more closely associated with the institution than other faculty members would be. Bowen said that was true, but had no relevance on his academic freedom. “You don’t give up your scholarly credentials” when you take on an administrative role, Bowen said.

The AAUP recently found itself spending a lot of time on Middle Eastern politics — when it planned, postponed, and eventually abandoned a planned conference on academic boycotts. The conference imploded amid reports that the association had accidentally sent anti-Semitic materials from Holocaust deniers to conference participants. But the invitation-only conference was already being criticized for a guest list that many said gave too many slots to professors who want to endorse boycotts of Israeli universities. Critics of the conference say that it fell apart because it was poorly organized with an unbalanced attendee list, but supporters of the conference say that the association was punished for opening the meeting to critics of Israel.

“I think there is something called the Israel lobby,” Bowen said. “I don’t think anyone doubts that, and I think Walt and Mearsheimer — just like any other scholar — have every reason in the world to comment, and academic freedom guidelines protect their right to do research in this area in the same way scholars who disagree have every right in the world to take them to task and to do critical research on their study.”

While academics comment on a range of controversial issues all the time, Bowen said that dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian issues posed particular difficulties. Bowen said that one of his “real shocks” at the AAUP was when “a very close friend and colleague” who is Jewish, a “strong civil libertarian,” and has “wonderful values on academic freedom” approached him about trying to urge Duke University to block a group there from organizing a national conference for student supporters of the Palestinian cause. “On that issue, there are blinders,” Bowen said.

“Any time you deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even indirectly, you need to be prepared,” he said.

— Scott Jaschik

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Comments

Well-done summary

Before the bricks begin to fly —

A tip of the hat to the article’s writer for successfully walking thru the ideological minefields without blowing up.

Next: no references to someone being Hitler, or “Death To [insert entity].”

Art D., at 7:00 am EST on March 27, 2006

Did critics read the article?

I’m astounded to have that “Dershowitz said that the article was “bigoted” for implying that Jews are monolithic in support of all of Israel’s policies and of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq.” In fact, Mearsheimer and Walt, in the piece as published in the London Review of Books, repeatedly clarify differences of opinion (about the Iraq war, among other things) within the Jewish American community and specify that the “Lobby” does not include all Jewish Americans and does not represent a monolithic group.

Julian, at 7:30 am EST on March 27, 2006

a very skillful and balanced coverage of the controversy. Hope to read soon a follow up tracking in particular the reaction of the AAUP and Harvard University. Thanks.

m.hasan, at 7:50 am EST on March 27, 2006

War of Words

Next: let’s see who uses their real name or full name to make comments on either side of this topic.

If the authors of the paper are not willing to engage in rigorous debate, then they are hiding. I am concerned by the anti-Israel movement among academia. If the authors did try to clarify their intentions after the fact, why did they not state said intentions unequivocally in their paper’s introduction?

It is disturbing to see that even protests of the Iraq war have been forums for spewing hatred towards Israel. It is ironic to hear such words coming from the left.

By the way, the article repeats an incident about anti-Semitic materials being “accidently” sent out. How were these materials in the hands of the organizers, and why was it part of their collection of materials in prepartion for their conference?

Manuel Arredondo, UTPA, at 8:15 am EST on March 27, 2006

The AAUP’s Blinders

“On that issue, there are blinders,” says Roger Bowen. Yet the AAUP’s conduct over the past two years suggests that the organization believes that these blinders apply only to supporters of Israel, not its critics. Last year, during Columbia’s MEALAC crisis, the AAUP outspokenly defended professors whose “blinders” led them to, among other items, claim in class that the Mossad originated the tactic of airplane highjacking. Then, in the aftermath of the Bellagio conference fiasco, the AAUP’s Joan Scott commented at Inside Higher Ed that profs who criticized the conference violated an unspecified AAUP “procedure.” Now, Roger Bowen states that he’ll be monitoring reaction to the Walt/Mearsheimer paper: if only all academics who publish weakly sourced papers that make inflammatory allegations could have the AAUP’s general secretary willing to go to bat on their behalf.

KC Johnson, Professor at Brooklyn College, at 8:35 am EST on March 27, 2006

Amusing sidelight

“Next: let’s see who uses their real name ..”

We’re a bit off-topic .. but the aforementioned going to happen right after all the anonymous postings on academic sites end, just after the Sun goes nova, IMHO.

Heck, in the FAIR case, there were LAW colleges that didn’t want to be named publicly, for fear of retribution. Professors WITH tenure! LAW professors who can litigate endlessly!

C’mon .. get real. Stuff happens.

Art D., at 8:50 am EST on March 27, 2006

I see that KC Johnson, as ever, wastes no time going after the AAUP, despite the many virtues of this article and despite Roger Bowen’s judicious remark about the blinders of scholars who are too ideologically entrenched on one side or another of the Israel-Palestine question. Reasonable people might remember that the AAUP opposed the AUT’s foolish boycott of Israeli scholars, but not our KC. He’s a culture warrior through and through, and doesn’t miss a single opportunity to rehearse a right-wing talking point. Those blinders must work pretty well.

Michael Bérubé, at 9:35 am EST on March 27, 2006

Comments on the Israel Lobby

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2006/03/24/the-israel-lobby/

lnp3, Columbia University, at 9:35 am EST on March 27, 2006

KC: you go, guy!

The average person sees KC as a lonely, solitary voice for traditional values in an overwhelming deluge of one-sided politicized tripe blathered by professors of English, neo-Marxism & Hiliary-worship.

Academic freedom is great — when 99% of the activist academic crowd spout the same old tired verbage (e.g., the U.S. is always wrong, capitalism and NCLB suck, Bush is an idiot, Teddy Kennedy is right, etc.). Not part of the crowd? Too bad.

This week, at least one big U.S. company will announce another major layoff. With that in mind, a question to the brilliant leaders of the AAUP: how long do you think a kind, generous public will be able to AFFORD these seemingly endless debates? Especially one-sided ones?

B.J., at 10:50 am EST on March 27, 2006

The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

I confess, Michael Bérubé has exposed me: I’m a pro-gay marriage, pro-choice, pro-Hillary Clinton “right-winger.” We’re a very large group. (I wasn’t aware, by the way, that sympathy for Israel was considered a “right-wing” position as well.)

In the comments section in Inside Higher Ed’s “Fiasco at AAUP” article (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/02/09/aaup), Cary Nelson, who (I assume) even Michael Bérubé wouldn’t identify as a “right-winger,” stated the following to describe his opposition to the AAUP’s Bellagio conference: “Staff tells me that a conference organizer proposed producing a new statement from the conference. That would defy AAUP traditions by placing contradictory statements in circulation.” I was glad to see the AAUP resolve forcefully against the AUT’s boycott, but the Bellagio affair left the organization’s position muddied.

Roger Bowen’s comments in the above article may indeed be viewed as judicious. Yet until the AAUP leadership seems as concerned with speaking out against those whose blinders are anti-Israel as those whose blinders are pro-Israel, I’ll remain skeptical.

KC Johnson, Professor at Brooklyn College, at 10:50 am EST on March 27, 2006

“War on Words” calls the Mearsheimer-Walt article “a scholarly work,” but it is precisely the quality of their work as scholarship that is at issue in the more thoughtful responses that have begun to appear.

Professors Jeffrey Herf and Andrei S. Markovits have published an open letter to the editor available at http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2006/03/a_reply_to_mear.html

Rick Richman provides a detailed analysis of one of Mearsheimer and Walt’s footnotes athttp://jpundit.typepad.com/jci/2006/03/walt_mearsheime.html

Professor Shalom Lappin offers makes short, but telling, points athttp://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2006/03/more_on_mearshe.html

Professor Daniel Drezner has an interesting comment athttp://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/002642.html

David A. Guberman, at 11:10 am EST on March 27, 2006

KC Johnson hits the nail on the head. The chief and major advisors to Bush on beginning the Iraq War were Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice. As far as I know, none of these advisors, nor Bush himself, is Jewish. Yet Walt and Mearsheimer seek a Jewish conspiracy to foment the war “in Israel’s interest", having to go down to second and third level bureaucrats (Feith, Wolfowitz) in order to find their Jews. Then we are supposed to believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice are all of them mere puppets of these clever Jews.

Well, it smells as a historical methodology and it smells of anti-semitism to boot—and I am saddened (but no longer surprised) to see Michael Berube signing on.

The basic distortion in U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East since 1945 has been to secure a source of OIL—not to support Israel. If there are distortions in U.S. policy, it has flowed from that purpose. And of course Bush and Cheney are both professional oil businessmen. But...never mind, it must be the Jews. Thanks Professors Walt, Mearsheimer and Berube for enlightening us.

Art Eckstein (Oh, P.S.—like KC Johnson, I am a registered Democrat and I too support gay marriage. I’m sure that won’t stop Berube from calling me a right winger, though.)

art eckstein, at 11:20 am EST on March 27, 2006

On Another Subject

I agree with KC Johnson ... with $5 and the AAUP’s outrage one can purchase a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

Without committing to either side of this debate, I can’t tell you how angry I get when I read, “The views expressed in the KSG Faculty Working Paper Series are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the John F. Kennedy School of Government or Harvard University.”

Nonsense! I can assure you that virtually all university entities – departments, schools, colleges, divisions, institutes, entire colleges and universities, etc. – are first and foremost communities of scholars ... i.e., students, teachers (faculty), and research scholars. Those individuals ARE the entity (e.g., the Kennedy School of Government). Whatever the scholars say or write ARE the viewpoints of the entity, not that any reasonable academic should expect the entity’s “viewpoint” to be consistent over all of its members. That is what makes academe interesting, exciting, vital, and even important.

What the academic entity IS NOT is a collection of managers, quaking in their litigation-fearful boots, writing disclaimers and deciding what are and are not the sanctioned views of the entity. Indeed, perhaps someone from the Kennedy School will be so kind as to send me a detailed account (list) of statements that, en toto define the views of the School.

Of course the Mearsheimer and Walt paper reflects the views of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. First, Stephen Walt and quite a few other scholars ARE the Kennedy School. Second, the School’s so-called working papers have no significance beyond being files on student, faculty, and staff hard drives unless the School is willing to say, “Look, here is a thesis that we are formally introducing for the consideration of scholars everywhere ... and we are introducing it under the auspices (the force) of our School.

Am I hot under the collar? You bet! Why we students and faculty let managers get away with this business of deciding who speaks for us when we form collectives stretches my ability to understand ... all the way to the breaking point.

RWH, at 11:20 am EST on March 27, 2006

One of the main criticisms of the paper has been that it’s a piece of very poor scholarship. Shouldn’t the AAUP at least care about _that_? I mean: I don’t think the AAUP would make even _cautious_ defenses of bigots of other types, and I imagine that one thing they’d say in other cases of bigotry—if they didn’t want to confront bigotry directly (though they probably would _confront_ it..in any other case)—would be that bad scholarship should be discouraged. But in this case, em...

puzzled, at 11:20 am EST on March 27, 2006

Whatever the merits or the paper are or are not, Mr. Dershowitz is hardly an authority on the matter. It still puzzles me that when the professional talking heads at our universities (Dershowitz, Posner, et al.) begin buzzing about god-knows-what the rest of the academy falls silent and lets the same old windbags give the party line.

Sadly, it may come as a surprise to those in the academy (such as Mr. Drezner at the U of C) that discussion of academic matters in the popular press amounts to little more than a dishonest joke on the parts of all who play. Anyone who truly cares about the matter (and not about getting more press time) will read the paper and judge for themselves.

On another note, I am sad to see that the press in general has done little more than repeat the details of the origianl article that ran in the Crimson last week. Bad journalism does not help this matter.

I give it a week before someone unearths Edward Said’s body and forces a comment from him!

PhD, U of C, at 2:15 pm EST on March 27, 2006

Playing into their hands

Do pro-Israel folks not realize that their hyper-reaction to such things only feeds their enemies? Two profs put out a paper and suddenly dozens of establishment figures rage against the machine. Methinks they doth protest too much! I have no dog in this fight but I see such a reaction and think immediately, what do these folks have to hide?As to the substance of the charges: I have not read the paper, but that AIPAC is one of the largest, most influential lobbys in the nation is simply a fact. Whether that is a good thing or not is one issue (as far as I can tell most ethnic groups, quite understandably, try to influence our political scene in ways favorable to favored nations [witness Cuba policy]), but to pretend that such an influence is not there is simply counterfactual.

Ken, Radford, at 2:15 pm EST on March 27, 2006

Israel

Finally, someone has called a spade a spade. Support for the illegal nation of Israel is the worst thing to ever happen to the US.

Tom Lowe, at 3:20 pm EST on March 27, 2006

Manuel Arredondo is concerned aout the “anti-Israel movement” in academe. If there is such a thing, and if the Kennedy School paper reflects it, then there are also anti-Saudi Arabia movements, anti-Venezuela movements, and on through the rest of the 180 or so countries in the world.

No one nation — and especially one with a huge military, a nuclear arsenal, an enormous secret budget, a history of officially-sanctioned torture, and a record of using collective punishment (destroying entire towns as revenge for terrorist acts)against an ethnic minority — ought to be exempt from criticism.

Of all institutions, nation-states should be considered the legitimate targets of as much criticism as can be mustered.They ALL — whether Jewish, Islamic, Christian, or Budhist-based — tend toward power consolidation and authoritarianism, if not worse.

We’ve heard an awful lot about the “failed” Muslim states and the need for them to “reform” — which seems to mean, in the end, to replace their current dictator with one who is willing to sell their resources to Western corporations at Wal-mart prices.

If it’s okay to publish almost literally endless critiques about these failed Islamic states, and endless books and papers about how the West can improve them for their own good, and at what point they will be “ready” to do things the proper (Western) way, I find it difficult to see why criticizing any other country, including Israel, should be curtailed.

jim Glover, at 3:30 pm EST on March 27, 2006

Interesting

Some academics write a paper saying essentially that the pro Israel lobby stifles debate by attacking and smearing anyone who questions the US / Israel relationship. They are then subject to a wave of attacks and smears by that very same pro Israel lobby. Maybe they are declining to comment further because they don’t need to... The reaction to their paper so far is proving them 100% correct.

James Woods, at 4:40 pm EST on March 27, 2006

Anti-Israel points of view are not equivalent to reasonable concerns/critiques. The authors appear to be trying to back track on their assertions about the Lobby. I have my concerns but not to the extreme extent of equating a democratic Israel to the dictatorships in the Middle East. Moral equivalency is the danger here among academia. Throwing the word “WalMart” around doesn’t add anything to the debate; but only supports such extreme beliefs that living under these dictatorships is preferable. Hence such comments that the Iraqis were better off under Saddam.

In response to “Get real...stuff happens". So true. The problem is such retribution comes from fellow academics. So much for the free exchange of ideas. How sad that we in “higher education” must comment anonymously. Seems like dictatorships are not only in the Middle East but on our own campuses. That’s for another topic though.

Manuel Arredondo, UTPA, at 4:40 pm EST on March 27, 2006

Smearing Walt and Mearsheimer

The attacks on Walt and Mearsheimer constitute just another Zionist campaign to suppress the debate about the U.S.’s longstanding policy of supporting for Israel. This is part of the Zionism’s campaign, stretching back nearly 170 years, to silence discussion of the nature of Judaism and the importance of Jewish power.

Im this particular case, it’s simply outrageous that Zionists think they can milk the American taxpayer of billions and use the American state as their proxy without at the same time acknowledging the right of Americans to openly discuss the impact of all these pro-Israel policies on them.

In other words, it’s sheer chutzpah.

Anyone who doesn’t think there’s an ‘Israel lobby’ is just showing their ignorance. And Jews who think Americans don’t have the right to talk about it are just showing their arrogance.

Social Democracy Now, at 7:35 pm EST on March 27, 2006

Isn’t this for real-politik?

Let me see if I understand this —

IHE reports (1) higher ed system (and students) under great financial stress and (2) enormous amount of resources being tied up by campaigns to divest U.S. interests in Israel (which, I am sure, is dividing the Democrats).

Working-class person’s question: trendy campaigns to divest from (whatever) might have been fundable in good economic times.

But given today’s economic climate (hello, China) — why don’t Law Prof. Dershowitz, English Prof. Berube, Harvard’s KSG, AAUP, et al., take their argument to the political caucuses and conventions?

And let academia get back to, say, teaching students about math, science, engineering, art, etc.? Y’know — so they can compete against the Chinese, Japanese, Germans, Koreans, et al.?

What a lovely dream ..

Art D., at 7:35 pm EST on March 27, 2006

I Can Make Up My Own Mind

I read the paper. I reserve the right to decide for myself whether or not it is poor scholarship. Even if it is a ” C ” paper, the ideas that are offered ought to be evaluated based on their historicity and validity.

I also believe that students at major learning institutions throughout the world have the ability to decide if the information in the paper is valid or not by merely checking the facts.

Apparently, the professors and commentators ( and Atty.’s ) weighing in on this debate have committed themselves to being for or against open discussion. We will never approach solutions if we do not talk about our problems and consider workable options.

Bearing around the banner of democracy does not prove a nation just or committed to equity and respect. The nation of my birth has vaunted itself as ” democratic “; yet it is responsible for some of the most murderous genocidal atrocities abroad and virulent racism in N. America. Lets agree to call racist butchers what they are, even though they may prefer to refer to themselves as ” selected meat carvers “.

Someone once said that our solutions are going to have to originate in thinking superior to that which created our problems. If we can not honestly define the issues about which we converse, why bother to talk at all?

On the other hand, when you are born on a battlefield you have limited options, pick sides or get you head blown off your neck.

W Cageaims, at 7:35 pm EST on March 27, 2006

manuel arredondo

A democratic Israel ? They called the U.S.A. Democratic befor Women and Blacks go a vote, if my memory is correct. Dr. Who anyone

ken nicholson, at 8:55 pm EST on March 27, 2006

Dr. Who and other Socialists

The comments by someone anonymously claiming to be from Social Democracy Now makes my earlier points exactly. I wonder what their final solution will be in dealing with their ‘fellow Zionists’. then again, perhaps the person is not with SDN. By the way, while I know of Dr. Who, I’m more into Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica (the new version).

Manuel Arredondo, at 4:20 am EST on March 28, 2006

The Walt/Mearsheimer paper.

If anything, Stephen M. Walt and John J. Mearsheimer understate the case against Israel in their paper: “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy". I refer readers to George Ball’s “Error and Betrayal in Lebanon ” or Michael Saba’s The Armageddon Network for an insightful look into Israel’s stranglehold over U.S. foreign policy. And there is Stephen Green’s “Living by the Sword: American and Israel in the Middle East 1968-87″ which details Israel’s stunning deception/espionage surrounding the building of the Dimona nuclear enrichment facility—built for the express purpose of constructing nuclear weapons. (Why the almost pathological avoidance of Israel’s nuclear weapons capability-even to this day? Why the failure to demand IAEA inspection of Dimona?) Why do we pretend Israel’s nuclear warfare capability doesn’t constitute a ‘clear and present danger in the middle east’?

Is there any lobbing force more influential than the Israel Lobby, especially Israel’s AIPAC, which any sensible American would insist be registered as an official agency for Israel? I don’t think so. Fact: AIPAC operates like an intelligence organization. It is, doubtless, no more than an extension of the Mossad collecting enormous information on the US Congress for the purpose of manipulating and control. The Walt/Mearsheimer paper goes along way toward exposing this manipulation, but more is needed.

Matthew Moriarty, at 10:11 am EST on March 28, 2006

The Truth Can be Painful

These are brave and courageous men that need our prayers.

Christian Saint, at 12:30 pm EST on March 28, 2006

Sorry, Professor Eckstein— I’ve got no time to call you and KC knee-jerk culture warriors. Yesterday I opposed the AUT’s anti-Israel boycott, and was pleased that the AAUP did the same. Today, however, I’m too busy worshipping Hiliary. O Great and Powerful Hiliary! Smite mine enemies, every one!

Michael Bérubé, at 1:00 pm EST on March 28, 2006

“Bowen said that the irony over the furor is that the argument in the paper is “not particularly new.”

Yes, the _Protocols_ have been around for well over a century.

Bad English, at 8:05 am EST on March 29, 2006

Professor Berube finds that the Walt and Mearsheimer paper has “many virtues". But Dennis Ross (Clinton’s leading Mideast negotiator) indicate it is the work of ignoramuses. But of course Ross is Jewish, Professor Berube—and you may have noticed that there are several folks on this blog, siding with you, who will therefore automatically discount it. You ought to think seriously about the company you’re keeping.

But David Gergen isn’t Jewish, and he served both Republicans and Democrats in the White House and HIS response too is that Walt and Mearheimer don’t know what they’re talking about, that the White House he saw didn’t operate anything like the way they said.

That Professor Berube finds “many virtues” in a paper that rebirths The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a stunning statement—he should be ashamed of himself. Or, perhaps he should re-examine some of his assumptions.

Art Eckstein

art eckstein, at 11:30 am EST on March 29, 2006

“Pro Palestinian Students”

How telling that the AAUP calls the International Solidarity Movement a group of “pro-Palestinian students” and implies that Prof. Dershowitz was simply trying to silence criticism of Israel. The ISM’s activities are well documented by Lee Kaplan, among others. according to his reports, the ISM goes well beyond indoctrinating students will false propaganda about Israel’s history and policies. The ISM has voiced support for suicide bombers, recruits students to act as human shields for gunman firing at Israeli troops, and actively conspires in violating both Israeli and US law. ISM leaders have stated publicly that death or injury to US and UK student volunteers helps their cause. They have gotten their wish on at least two occasions, when ISM volunteers were killed after being deliberately placed in harm’s way. It is inaccurate and irresponsible to charge that opposition to an ISM conference is simply attempting to silence critics of Israel. The blinders in this case are worn by those who try to claim project a neutral stance while enabling terrorist attacks on civilians.

Member of the Lobby, at 12:00 pm EST on March 29, 2006

Stifling debate

Let me get this straight. Two professors at respected universities publish a paper saying criticising the Israel Lobby for many things, including smearing those who disagree with the Lobby and attempting to stifle debate. Other respected scholars publish a response, criticising the paper for shoddy scholarship, with detailed and verifiable examples. These documented shortcomings include lack of primary sources, taking quotations out of context, fabricating or distorting quotations, and outright mistatements of verifiable fact, including current Israeli law and historic events. (When confronted with a particularly egregious misstatement, one author responds that he will need to look into it; isn’t he supposed to do that BEFORE publishing?) The critics trace many of these misstatements to hate sites on the internet.

The critics do not ask for dismissal, resignation or discipline — only for an admission that the scholarship is shoddy. They offer to debate the authors, but the authors decline.

Now the authors and their supporters are taking the critics’ response as proof that the Israel Lobby attempts to silence or smear those who expose them? Well, I suppose if exposing shoddy scholarship and offering to debate its authors is “silencing” them, the Lobby must be guilty. But looking at some of the response on this site, I can’t help asking who’s trying to silence who?

Member of the Lobby, at 12:10 pm EST on March 29, 2006

Lacks gravitas?

Being non-Jewish/non-Palestinian and politically independent — my sense reading the original paper and its critiques is that the original paper lacks standing as expert-level material on Jewish/Palestinian matters.

That is, if one is going to wade into such waters — one damn better be a global authority on the topic. Because everyone is going to take a shot at you. I mean, Alan Dershowitz — an authority on Israel? Yes, probably.

KSG and Harvard erred by not vetting the authors’ work more carefully. I’m sure an outside editors’ review would have prevented a lot of grief, by requiring the authors to source and research more carefully.

R.A.S., at 1:15 pm EST on March 29, 2006

just another Zionist campaign

Checking the link from Social Democracy Now yielded this little gem: “rich and powerful Jews aim to rule the world and will do everything they possibly can to pummel gentiles into submission.” Other gems on the site defend Holocaust denial ("In short, whether or not the Holocaust took place, the historiography of the Holocaust is a house of cards: it is a vast edifice constructed on the precarious foundation of mere transcriptions of documents which have never been examined by those who cite them and whose authenticity has never been and probably never can be established"), suggests that Olof Palme was assassinated not by a lone nut but by a conspiracy Palme “with three interlocking sets of actors: the governments of South Africa, Israel and the United States. The same nexus of rightwing South Africans which was linked to the assassination in 1996 just happens to have included in its web Jack Abramoff,” and suggests that the Protocols are accurate. Profs. Walt and Mearsheimer and their supporters not only need to ask themselves why so many people have questioned their scholarship; they need to start thinking about why they are attracting support from these kinds of sources.

Member of the Lobby, at 7:50 pm EST on March 29, 2006

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War of Words Over Paper on Israel

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Smearing Walt and Mearsheimer

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